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Barch glowered, half-turned away. But, he decided, he would look less of a fool working than refusing to work. He could always leave the cave-but why should he? He was free; he was fed and sheltered; there was no reason for him to go. Barch sat down, began hulling nuts.
Weeks passed, two, three, a month. Barch mastered the simple routines of the tribe, gained a smattering of the common tongue. On several occasions he went hunting, and once killed a large, brown, two-legged creature like a hybrid of kangaroo and lizard, for which we was warmly congratulated.
He explored the cave. Four different passages opened out of the community hall. Two struck off more or less horizontally, winding through small chambers, nooks, niches and alcoves wherein the tribesmen slept. A third led down past Clet's chamber, dropping into the depths under the mountain. The fourth served as a flue for the fire, led up into an enormous space over the hall called Big Hole. At one end, where the wall was barely a shell, daylight seeped in through a fissure. Stalactites hung, stalagmites rose, occasionally joining to form spindly columns of fascinating height. In Big Hole, Barch arranged his bed of humus and rudely cured hides.
The tribe numbered thirty-four: twenty-one men, ten women, three doubtfuls. These last were the Calbyssinians: Armian, Ardl, Arn, whose sex was a frantically guarded secret. They were slight, pretty creatines with melting blue eyes and purple-gold hair. They bundled themselves in loose cloaks, and spent all their leisure time trying to probe out each other's secret. Their hints, wiles, sly strategies provided Barch with almost his only amusement.
In addition to the Calbyssinians, there were four Byathids: three tall pink men with foxy eyes, droopy noses, silky ci
There was Kerbol and his dour woman, stocky and gray-green, with pointed heads and frog-like faces.
There were three hatchet-faced Splangs with skins like Cordovan leather: Chevrr, Skurr and a thin beetle-faced woman that they shared.
There were two Griffits, cat-like men with watchful, sidelong eyes, stiff mustaches and an air of vindictive truculence that never quite manifested itself.
There was a large brown man who had lost his nose; his name was Flatface. He controlled two bald and bad-tempered women of unguessable race.
There was Pedratz, taffy-colored and smelling of musk, with eyebrows that rose into fantastic horns. There was Moranko, a sullenly handsome youth who hated Clet and presently Barch. There was the dwarf, Moses, with a punchinello face and skin like a piebald horse.
There were six of the bulldog-faced Modoks; four men and two women. They crouched by themselves at the back of the hall, watching everything with wide, suspicious eyes.
There was Sl, a white-ski
Making a mental inventory, Barch estimated that at least fifteen races from as many worlds occupied the cave. Sitting quietly at the back bench, he considered the melange with wry amusement. Never would it be said that his life had been uneventful or drab.
On Earth no one even suspected the existence of Magarak. And yet by this time… With a queasiness in his stomach, he speculated on the Klau raid. What had been their purpose?
Across the hall the voices of Flatface's two bald women rose in acrimony. Clet, at the big table in front of the fire, raised his bony red head; the bickering quieted. Clet disliked noise. Here was one reason, thought Barch, for the fact that the tribe so widely disparate in background could live in comparative amity. Another lay in the fundamental nature of their existence, a kind of cultural least-common-denominator, a stage through which each of the races had passed. For Barch, that stage had been only three or four thousand years in the past. He glanced at Komeitk Lelianr, who sat drawing aimless patterns on the table with her fingers. How long had it been since her ancestors lived in caves? A hundred thousand years? A million?
She looked clean and fresh, Barch noticed. Her face was thi
Barch rose to his feet, went outside into the darkness. Mist that was not quite drizzle dampened his face. Against the blurred gray of the limestone cliff he noticed a dark shape. His heart stopped for an instant, then started again. It was Kerbol, whom nature had endowed with a skin the color of wet rock, pop-eyes, a mouth like a flap. Barch remembered that Kerbol grumbled about the heat in the hall and seemed to enjoy the cool dampness of the valley.
Barch went to stand beside him; any man that preferred the solitude of the valley to the hall seemed an ally.
Kerbol grunted, and after a moment said in a deep rumbling voice, "The mist falls, the wind blows backwards down Palkwarkz Ztvo. Tomorrow the sky will be high and then the Klau come hunting. Tomorrow will be a good day to stay close by the cave."
Barch remembered the bugling Podruods, the frantic fat man, the Klau raft with the black arms dangling below. "How often do the Klau hunt?"
"Every eight, ten days, if the weather suits. They are the Quodaras District Klau; Parkwarkz Ztvo is their region. The Xolboar Klau hunt in Poriflammes." He pointed to the valley entering the Palkwarkz Ztvo near the mouth.
Sudden enlightenment came to Barch. "So-we live in a hunting preserve; we're tolerated in order to provide the Klau with sport!"
"The Klau planet is a week distant; the Klau must amuse themselves."
Barch said thoughtfully, "I could certainly amuse myself hunting Podruods and Klau."
Kerbol digested the idea. "You think in strange directions. Very strange."
Barch laughed sourly. "I don't see anything strange about it. If the Klau hunt me, it's only fair that I hunt them."
"That is not the theory of the hunt." Kerbol spoke politely.
"It's not the Klau theory; it is my theory. Do we have to live by Klau theory?"
Kerbol said thoughtfully, "It was too hot at the quarry."
A dull explosion from over Kebali Ridge jarred the air of the valley. "There they shoot now," said Kerbol. "Notice the double shock?"
"No."
"The charge was ten cans of abiloid, a twentieth cut of the super. The super smashes the rock; the abiloid pushes it down."
"You seem to know a great deal about explosives."
Kerbol nodded gloomily. "Five years I drilled and charged, drilled and charged. And always in the heat. I ran into the forest and came over Mount Kebali to Palkwarkz Ztvo, where I must take my chances with the hunters."
Barch asked curiously, "What is that black thing that hangs under the Klau raft?"
"Those are"-Kerbol stopped, grasped for a word-"pulling things. In factories they lift loads. The Klau grow them; they are half-alive."
"The Klau carry other weapons?"
"Yes. They shoot across long distances; a little splinter enters a man's belly, explodes. The man is dead."
Barch looked up and down the dark valley. The mist had risen, a current of air smelling of rotting vegetation blew on his face. From the far distance sounded a harsh clanking, a screech. Barch muttered, "At night a whole regiment of Podruods could come up here."
Kerbol moved uneasily. "That has never happened."
"But it might," said Barch.
"You think strange, uncomfortable thoughts," said Kerbol.
On the following day the overcast was high, the wind light. The tribesmen hung close to the cave. But no bugling cries were heard and the Klau did not appear.